Amazing! Fabulous! Awesome!

[Stanley Doble]

Oldest use I have seen of groovy was a detective story ca.1890. It was used to describe someone as obsessive. "She thought about it too much and got groovy on the subject".

 

[LizzieMaine]

Snazzy and hot-pups have their place as well.

 

[Shangas]

I just realised how much I tend to use 'Snazzy', along with 'jazzy'.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

I still say it when it fits.

Of course. If you find some swell artifact from the 60's, it's groovy.

 

[rue]

Probably "redonkulous."

Did you see I love you, Man too?


People said awesome so much that it annoyed me, so now I say it as a joke in a smart-ass tone to annoy them.


I say bitchen, as in "that's bitchen", quite a bit, because my mother used it all the time while I was growing up [huh]

 

[scottyrocks]

See, this is also what I consider a sad tale of 2012. Anything beyond a tweet or text is now considered a "dissertation." I see a sentence or two as brevity.

"Word" dates back to the 1970s. I used it a lot in NYC at that time. It's not a descriptor but an affirmation of agreement.

So we seem to have two issues here. Brevity, and word choice for brevity. We've always had words, or rather, a word useful as an explanation, way before 2012, as so many posts have demonstrated. A couple of sentences, or a mere word, have been used for decades. Are we now trying to lay at the feet of either 2012 or technology this 'sudden' adoptation of one-word exclamations?

 

[scottyrocks]

George Carlin had a couple of words of appreciation that I won't mention here, but they were pretty effective in and of themselves.

 

[Flicka]

Snazzy and hot-pups have their place as well.

I definitely overuse 'snazzy'. It's such a, well, snazzy word!

Along with its intensifiers, swell-o and swell-o-rooney.

Swell-o-rooney. I like that. Adding it to my personal dictionary.

In my family we use "très bien à gauche!" to express approval, which is French for "very good to the left". It comes from an incident when my father tried to speak French and for some reason that peculiar sentence came out. I think it's the full extent of his French vocabulary...

 

[gtdean48]

...I say bitchen, as in "that's bitchen", quite a bit, because my mother used it all the time while I was growing up [huh]

Excellent!

 

[LizzieMaine]

So we seem to have two issues here. Brevity, and word choice for brevity. We've always had words, or rather, a word useful as an explanation, way before 2012, as so many posts have demonstrated. A couple of sentences, or a mere word, have been used for decades. Are we now trying to lay at the feet of either 2012 or technology this 'sudden' adoptation of one-word exclamations?

It's more the lack of real expressiveness in the words that are used, as far as I'm concerned. Slang in the era had infinite shadings of meaning -- something could be swell, nifty, swanky, ritzy, spiffy, peachy, solid, snazzy, snarky, top-drawer, first-rate, or grand -- and all of those terms meant something slighty different. When something is "awesome!" that really doesn't tell me anything. Is Mount Rushmore "awesome?" Is a bowl of chicken noodle soup "awesome?" It doesn't really seem to *mean* anything, at least not to my hearing -- it's the "you know" of intensifiers, a placeholder word thrown in because the speaker doesn't seem to have anything else to say.

 

[sheeplady]

I use awesome a lot. Mainly in emails to the support staff where I work. I thank them for what they did for me and then tell them, "you are awesome!" I've never had anyone complain. If anybody I know is awesome, it's the support staff. It's kind of my thing. I don't think some people get told they are awesome nearly enough. Without them, I'd be up a creek.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

So we seem to have two issues here. Brevity, and word choice for brevity. We've always had words, or rather, a word useful as an explanation, way before 2012, as so many posts have demonstrated. A couple of sentences, or a mere word, have been used for decades. Are we now trying to lay at the feet of either 2012 or technology this 'sudden' adoptation of one-word exclamations?

Yes, I am saying technology is a purveyor of brevity without meaning which is not the same as meaningful economy of speech. Yes, there have always been one word descriptors, but more and more people are using one word to convey meaning that is lost in the few word choices.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

I say everything mentioned here! Awesome, word, phat, "the bomb", rad, "sike", fantastic, amazing, swell....etc.!!! I like to be silly and funny. I like making people laugh.

Awesome, fantastic, and nifty are probably my three most-used. I reserve amazing for when something truly does blow my mind

Gonna work in "phosphorecent" now that I am in love with it.

 

[gtdean48]

I remember when a cousin came to visit one summer in the early 70's.
He used "boss" - had never heard it used in southern GA except for a Mustang Boss. I liked it ever since.

 

[magnolia76]

I use "phenomenal" quite a bit to describe an impressive job well done. Amazing, fantastic, and super are also in my vocabulary. My coworker says "Just yodel if you need anything." I absolutely love that!

 

[scottyrocks]

It's more the lack of real expressiveness in the words that are used, as far as I'm concerned. Slang in the era had infinite shadings of meaning -- something could be swell, nifty, swanky, ritzy, spiffy, peachy, solid, snazzy, snarky, top-drawer, first-rate, or grand -- and all of those terms meant something slighty different. When something is "awesome!" that really doesn't tell me anything. Is Mount Rushmore "awesome?" Is a bowl of chicken noodle soup "awesome?" It doesn't really seem to *mean* anything, at least not to my hearing -- it's the "you know" of intensifiers, a placeholder word thrown in because the speaker doesn't seem to have anything else to say.

Awesome is definitely overused and abused in way too many situations.

When I think of using a word such as 'awesome,' I think of it in the context that I think it was intended, and a word such as 'spiffy' the way it is intended. Both words, to me, have a definite feel to them and are not interchangable and I don't use them interchangably. Awesome is big in an extraordinary sort of way. Spiffy is neat and tidy, in a snazzy sort of way. Too many people do use 'awesome' for too many things.

I think the 'valley girl' abuse of words such as 'awesome' is what I can object to, in whatever small way I will devote any of my time to objecting to things such as this.

 

[scottyrocks]

I remember when a cousin came to visit one summer in the early 70's.
He used "boss" - had never heard it used in southern GA except for a Mustang Boss. I liked it ever since.

We used to use that when I was a kid. 'Hey, that's BOSS!' Yeah, that was a fun use of that word.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think the 'valley girl' abuse of words such as 'awesome' is what I can object to, in whatever small way I will devote any of my time to objecting to things such as this.

Well, that leads right into the whole Californication of our culture -- the whole valley-girl/surfer/slacker/beach bum thing that's been engulfing us like a gigantic suntanned amoeba since the sixties. It was bad enough they took the Dodgers, now they're coming for the rest of us -- but as a flinty Northeaster born and bred, I resist this with every fibre of my being. Put some clothes on, you kids, get a haircut, and get a job!

 

[W-D Forties]

I use that, and also 'fabuloso' a lot. Fabuloso is Polari, I think.

I taught a young man a couple of years ago who's entire vocabulary seemed to start with F and end in K, especially when being 'dismissive of his peers'. I tried to convince him to be a little more creative with his rebuttals, e.g. 'You sir, are a cad!' or how's about 'You absolute rotter!'

It didn't work!

 

[Stanley Doble]

We should bring back snazzy. What a snazzy tie. You look snazzy today. No one will know what the hell we are talking about.